News

Finding connections at ASCHA conventionand in the community

April 25th, 2018

Points West Living was well represented at this year’s Alberta Seniors Communities and Housing Association (ASCHA) convention, held April 11-13 in Red Deer. General managers Carol Dyck (Stettler) and Tamara Thomas (Wetaskiwin) were there, along with Stephanie Miller (Director of Wellness and Cultural Development), Karen Boyer (Manager of Recreation & Community Development), Elithea De Villiers (Director of Health Services), and Marlon Cruz (Corporate Educator).

Carol Dyck (second from left in the photo above) agreed to share her thoughts and photos from the conference. Here is her report:

It all starts with a seed of care

With the conference theme of ‘Common Ground', many of the speakers talked about the importance of finding connections. There is always something that we can find that we have in common with everyone we meet. It all starts with a seed of care.

Finding the connection

For our residents, this means finding the connection that will make them feel at home and welcome in our communities. For care partners, this often makes the difference in making them feel engaged and wanting to embrace the Eden model of care and all it can bring to our community. When one of the presenters produced the statistic that only 13% of employees feel that they are engaged in their workplace, I knew that’s not the case in our communities. I know our care partners are much more highly engaged, not just because of how they responded in our recent Pulse Survey, but also as evidenced by the low employee turnover rates that we enjoy.

Hospice care

Listening to senior officials from the Alberta Government including a message from Lori Sigurdson, Minister of Seniors and Housing, gave me a good insight into their future priorities. I was especially interested to hear from Max Jajszczok, Executive Director for Seniors Health who spoke of hospice care as a big initiative for the coming year.

Tech talk

During the breakout sessions, our very own Stephanie Miller spoke with Andy Burgess from Telus on ‘Person Directed Communities through Technology and Information’. Points West Living and its operations partner Connecting Care has taken part in a focus group with Telus to explore how we can enhance the lives of our residents through the use of modern technology. Out of these sessions came a fantastic presentation and wonderful future opportunities for us to create new experiences for our residents.

Random act of Kindness

One thing I will take back to PWL Stettler from the conference is a tip from keynote speaker John Stix (whose company Fibernetics Corporation won a top award for Employee Engagement), we are going to institute a ‘Random Act of Kindness’ day.